The Littlest Grey
by Miss Milly
Summary: For Lexie, leaving was the easy part. All she wanted was to start fresh away from the drama at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. She never planned on coming back. Set somewhere in Season 7, some events may not have happened, or have happened in a different order than the show.
1. Chapter 1

**I realize it has been awhile since I've updated or posted anything new. I was just busy having my heart shattered by TV. Since my other M/L fic Love Me Do is slowly getting wrapped up, I was looking for something new to write and this little story came to mind. I'm just getting back into the swing of things (I totally blocked anything Grey's related from my brain after the finale) so bear with me. Please enjoy! Don't forget to read and review.**

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Leaving Seattle was the easy part.

After her shift was over she returned home, left Meredith a note, and hopped on the first train out of the city. The scene in the hallway with Mark and Derek's skanky sister was more than enough to make her want to leave. It was time for a fresh start.

Going back was never the plan. More than anything Lexie wanted to leave it all behind, but as she stood in front of Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital sixteen and a half months later with a whimpering baby on her hip she knew she couldn't put it off any longer.

Lexie stood there staring at the doors willing herself to go inside but her feet wouldn't move. Tiny hands reached for her face and curled around her bottom lip. Sharp fingernails dug into her skin.

"Ow ow ow," she pulled his fist away. He just stared up at his mum uneasily, "what am I doing here?" Lexie asked the 8 month old sucking quietly on his soother.

She studied the tiny human's face. He definitely looked like a Grey, but there was something else there. It was his smile. When his face lit up he looked exactly like the man who fathered him. "I know baby, I know. We should just go visit Molly, yeah? We'll tell her first. Okay," she decided and readjusted her son on her hip, "okay."

"Lexie?" someone followed her out into the parking lot. She cringed and turned around to see her brother-in-law.

"Uh, Derek. Hey," she said. The little boy she was carrying could feel her distress and he whimpered more.

"You disappeared," he stated.

"Yes. I did," Lexie fidgeted with her son's shoelace, "but I called Meredith. I didn't uh, _totally_ disappear."

"You didn't even tell her where you went. She was worried sick, we all were," Derek said to her but stared at the child.

The silence that fell between them was awkward and uncomfortable.

"Don't tell anyone yet," she pleaded, "um no one knows. Not Meredith, not-"

He interrupted, "Mark?"

"-anyone," she finished, "please."

"What should I tell them if they ask?" Derek frowned.

Lexie laughed, "You think they'll specifically ask if I came back with a child? I'll be back tomorrow, I just need to come up with a plan."

"Fine. But you better tell her. That's not fair," he rubbed his eyes, "you left her a note, Lexie. A damn note on the kitchen table and then you disappeared. You owe her an explanation."

"I know, believe me I know," her son wiggled restlessly in her arms, "look I have to go, we have a hotel room at the Archfield."

"Does he have a name?" Derek asked.

"Arthur," she kissed him lightly on the top of his head, "I named him Arthur." Lexie went back to search for the rental car in the parking lot and she heard Derek's footsteps fade.

Derek made his way back into the hospital and shook his head. There was always something going on in this place. Some huge secret to be kept, some betrayal meant to stay hidden, or some long lost child showing up. He felt sick to his stomach keeping something like this from Meredith.

"You, me, Joe's tonight after work," Mark approached him as he waited for the elevator, "you in?"

Derek shook his head, "Not tonight."

"Why not? It's been too long since we've had a boy's night," Mark pouted.

"Boy's night? What are you, a 20 year old girl," he chuckled, "uh no, tonight I'm spending time with Zola. Another time."

"Fine, you, me and the girls, my apartment," his friend offered. Derek sighed.

"Not tonight Mark, it's just not a good night," he said. The elevator doors dinged open cheerfully and the men stepped inside.

"Are you and Meredith okay? It's been a rough couple months, especially after that last miscarriage," Mark prodded.

"Meredith and I are fine," Derek assured him, "we're fine. For now," he added.

"For now? Is she, she's not pregnant again already? I mean I thought you two benched the idea," he said, his forehead wrinkled in concern.

"No, she's not pregnant. It's a long story," Derek cringed just thinking about how Mark is going to react, "at least I imagine it's a long story. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to be in surgery."

Mark watched his best friend step out of the elevator and towards the OR. Something was off with him today, he could feel it. He was going to find out what was going on.

When Derek came out of his surgery, Mark was waiting for him by the nurses' station, "Here, I got you a pick me up," he said and placed a Styrofoam cup in front of the other surgeon.

"Uh, thanks," Derek said and took a sip.

"So what's going on with you today," he dove right in, "you're acting weird."

"What do you mean? I'm fine," he smiled his charming McDreamy smile, but Mark wasn't buying it.

"Seriously, if something was going on you'd tell me, right?"

Derek took another sip of his coffee, "yeah. Yeah I would," he lied through his teeth.

"Good," Mark looked down at his own cup, "uh, do you know if Meredith has heard from her lately?" he added quietly.

His breath caught in his throat, "No. Meredith, uh, Meredith has not heard from Lexie recently."

"Yeah, I figured," Mark said looking crestfallen. A nurse passed Derek a patient's chart and he skimmed it over quickly. His friend took that as a cue to get back to work and walked back down the hallway. Derek would kick himself for what he was about to do.

"She's at the Archfield," he called to his friend.

Mark turned and shot him a confused look, "what?"

"Lexie," Derek sighed, immediately regretting his decision, "she's at the Archfield. I think she'll want to see you."

The skin between Mark's eyebrows wrinkled in anger and he took off. Derek proceeded to slam the chart shut as he realized that Arthur may not even be Sloan's child.

Mark ignored the "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging on the door of room 2243 and banged his fist on the door.

There was no answer. Mark banged harder; he had waited too long for this. She'd better open the damn door.

Finally the door swung open violently, "_Don't you know how to read?" _she hissed. Her eyes widened when she realized who was at the door, "Mark," her hand flew up to her mouth.

Mark was still taken aback at her aggressive greeting, "what the hell has gotten into you?" he said a little too loudly. From inside the hotel room a baby began to wail.

Lexie covered her face with both her hands and took a deep breath, "Damnit."

"Lex, what is going on?" he said. She ignored him and went back into the room. He closed the door behind him as he followed her to the origin of the crying.

"He was almost asleep, what is wrong with you," she accused him and picked up a small child from the hotel crib. Lexie cradled her son in her arms in an attempt to comfort him, "get his soother from the crib, please."

Dumbfounded, Mark obliged. He fished out a tiny blue soother out of the crib and brought it slowly over to his ex. He gently offered it to the baby, and to all of their relief he took it and began sucking quietly. "You have a baby," Mark stated, careful to monitor the volume of his voice.

Lexie avoided eye contact."Yes," she mumbled.

"Oh," Mark was afraid to ask the next question, but she seemed to sense what he was about to ask.

"It is," she clarified, "yours I mean. He's yours." Lexie swayed back and forth watching her son's eyelids flutter closed, "I didn't know I was pregnant when I left. Then I was too scared to come back."

"May I?" he held out his hands and Lexie placed their child into his arms. He was heavier than Mark expected, "He's a big boy," he grinned.

"Oh I know. 8lbs, 9oz when he was born," she smiled for the first time since Mark got there, "he's almost eight and a half months old now."

"What's his name?" Mark whispered, completely in awe of the sleepy child in his arms, "What's my son's name?"

"Arthur, Arthur Timothy Grey," Lexie said, "I named him after my grandpa on my dad's side."

Mark waited until Arthur fell asleep before he spoke next. "Don't mistake my desire to be involved in my son's life as being okay with what you did. You should have told me. Keeping him from me was selfish and hurtful and I don't know if I can ever forgive you," his voice was level and calm but Lexie could still hear the anger in it.

"I know," she said.

Leaving Seattle was one of the easiest decisions she had ever made. But coming back? Coming back was the hard part.

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**Oh no it seems that I have started to make things angsty again...whoops! Hehehe. **


	2. Chapter 2

**To all my Canadian readers, Happy Thanksgiving! Have a great long weekend. **

**Thank you all for the reviews and follows from the first chapter! I hope you enjoy the next one just as much. If any of you are on tumblr you can find my Grey's blog at .com or my personal blog at .com (only time I'm going to be posting that, I promise!). If you are on tumblr, drop me a line, I love hearing from people.  
**

**Enjoy! And please review.**

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"She doesn't know yet, does she?" Derek asked as he shared another cup of coffee with Mark at the nurse's station before his first surgery of the day.

Mark shrugged, "We're having dinner tonight, I'll tell her then."

"You know that furious, angry and betrayed feeling you're having right now?" Mark nodded, "she's going to be feeling it ten times worse. You should have told her last night," Derek chastised.

"She's the one who left," he said.

"So? Do you think this situation is one of clear and logical thinking? She's going to be furious," Derek shot his friend an apologetic grin.

Mark buried his head in his hands, "I know."

A hand reached between the two men to grab a chart from the counter. "Morning," Meredith greeted with a smile on her face. Derek responded with a peck on her lips. "You'll never guess who called before shift," she told them eagerly. Mark and Derek exchanged looks.

"Oh?" Derek humoured her.

"It was Lexie, she's come home," she said, "I convinced her to come meet me for lunch in the cafeteria today. I'm going to see if the Chief will give her her job back."

"I have to go," Mark left abruptly.

Meredith looked puzzled, "I thought he'd be happier to hear that she was back," she said to Derek.

"You might want to talk to her first, she might not even want to come back to work," he suggested.

"Why wouldn't she want to work? She loves being a surgeon," Meredith studied her husband's face, "You know something."

"Have a good lunch with Lexie, I'll see you after work," Derek placed his patient's chart under his arm and kissed Meredith on the cheek.

"What do you know?" she called after him.

With a huff Meredith returned to work. It was a good morning. A successful surgery, her interns stepped up their games, and the anticipation of finally seeing her sister again. She wasn't sure if she was just excited to see her or more excited to give Lexie a piece of her mind about leaving the way she did, but either way lunch wasn't coming fast enough.

Eagerly Meredith chose a table and shooed the other residents away. This lunch was just for her and Lexie. She checked her watch. Her sister was five minutes late. She shrugged it off and convinced herself that Lexie is only late if there's a really good reason to be. She'll show. So Meredith waited for another five minutes.

Then another ten.

After an hour of waiting and anger levels rising, Meredith gave up. Furious, she stormed out of the cafeteria and into the gallery. Maybe some blood and guts would calm her down.

Callie shifted in her seat as Grey sat beside her. She sighed and stared at the half attached leg on the table. Karev was performing yet another amputation; cutting off limbs seemed to have become his specialty. With a boredom induced yawn, she rose from her seat and stretched out widely.

"Down in front," an intern groaned. Callie rolled her eyes and left the gallery. There'd be plenty more opportunities to watch Alex cut off some guy's leg. To her relief the pager clipped to her scrubs began to beep, summoning her to the ER.

"Finally," she muttered to herself. The day had been going far too slow. As Callie entered the ER, she was met with an ear piercing wail. "Oh my God, can somebody shut that kid up?" she said to a nearby nurse and cringed at the noise.

The nurse, Samantha, shrugged. "That's one of your patients," she said loudly as she led the surgeon to the bed with the screaming child, "8 month old male, victim of a hit and run along with his mother."

Callie stared down at the miserable child. He looked so scared.

"Where's the mother?" she asked, checking out the child as she spoke. Aside from a few superficial injuries he seemed to be fine. "And can we get someone over here to look after this kid?"

"Next bed over," Samantha said and pulled the curtain open, revealing another nurse fighting to administer medication to the patient.

Callie's mouth fell open. "Lexie," she did a quick double take at the kid, attempting to do the math in her head. They were almost the same age.

"It-It's my collarbone…I think, a car came and and it hit us and he was in my arms, I tried not to land on him th-the car wasn't going very fast at all but it still knocked me off balance with enough force, is he…is he okay?" she stuttered with tears streaming down her face, with the exact same scared look on her face as the baby.

"Let me look," she said and inspected her patient's injuries, "he's going to be fine. We're getting someone down here while we look after you, alright Grey? He's okay."

"M-Mark," Lexie stammered, "you need to page him. About…Arthur."

With her theory confirmed, she sent Samantha to page Sloan and an intern to run some tests on Grey. None of her injuries were life threatening, but she landed on her shoulder pretty hard and Callie suspected some fractures at the very least.

With Grey out of the room she returned to Arthur, who was still wailing. "Come here little guy," she lifted him off the bed and attempted to comfort him. Sobbing, he grasped her hair and pulled. "Ow, nope that's not happening," she untangled his fingers and held them in her fist, all the while bouncing him slightly.

Callie took him out into an empty hallway where his screaming echoed and she paced. "I know. It's scary, you can't find Mum and you're stuck with some random doctor lady who you don't even know in this weird smelling hospital, but it's going to be okay. I promise," she said. Arthur wasn't hearing any of it.

She sighed and remembered Sloan was in surgery. A few moments later Arizona appeared in the thankfully empty hallway.

"What's with the random page?" Arizona flinched. "Is he okay?" she gestured towards the kid who was as vocal as ever.

"Him? Oh he's fine. Me? Not so much," Callie pleaded, "just take him please. I need to not have screaming in my ear."

"Fine, give him here," she held out her hands as Callie gently placed Arthur in her arms. Carefully Arizona shifted his head into the crook of her elbow and slid her arm between his legs so her hand rested on his backside. Humming, she rocked him back and forth while patting his bum to a slow rhythm.

Within seconds the wailing stopped and moments later his eyes fluttered shut. Callie sighed, "It's magic."

Arizona chuckled quietly, "It's a system that works."

"Must be a Sloan thing," Robbins tilted her head in confusion, "that kid right there? Adorable, button nosed, shrieks like a banshee child? He's Lexie Grey's."

Arizona's eyes widened, "_WHAT_" she whispered hoarsely.

"He's two weeks older than her," Callie added.

"No way," Arizona kept staring down at Arthur, "Huh…wait no, I can kinda see it. His mouth is kind of …Sloan-y. Wow."

"I know right? Do you think this was why she left?"

"Maybe. That's…wow. Damn Sloan is fertile." Arizona shook her head, "that's three already. How many more do you think are out there?"

Callie's laugh came out sounding like a bark. "Knowing Sloan? Plenty."

"You would think this is something Meredith would have mentioned," Arizona said, still rocking Arthur gently.

"Oh no," Callie's tired eyes shot open, "I didn't even think to page Meredith. Damnit! Her sister and nephew, a nephew that I'm not 100% sure she even knows about, got hit by a car and I didn't page her. I have to go find her." She took off down the hallway.

"But what am I supposed to do with- oh, and she's gone. Okay," Arizona said. She looked down at Arthur once more and whispered, "Welcome to the family, little man. It will only get crazier."

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**Hmmm looks like Mark's got a few secrets of his own. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to review!  
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